Girl left blind for four days after wearing contact lenses

Emilie Turcotte woke up screaming, crying that her eyes were 'burning like fire'. Photos / Facebook

An 11-year-old girl was left temporarily blinded by coloured contact lenses, and now a her mother wants to warn others about the dangers of them.

Last year, the day after she went trick-or-treating with friends, Emilie Turcotte, of Blainville, in Montreal, Canada, woke up screaming, crying that her eyes were 'burning like fire' and she could not open them anymore according to DailyMail.

Julie and her daughter Emily. Photo / Facebook

Her mother, Julie, immediately rushed her to the hospital where doctors told her that the contact lenses had damaged her corneas and had infected the skin around her eyes.

Emilie's eyesight gradually returned, but doctors warned the family that if they hadn't come to the hospital right away, the grade-schooler might have ended up permanently blind.

Julie told Le Journal de Montreal that she bought the lenses at Party Expert, a chain party supply store in Canada's Quebec province, as part of her daughter's demon costume.

Emilie wore them at school for around four hours then took them of for dinner. She put them back on to go trick-or-treating, but removed them before she went to sleep.

The next morning, she woke up screaming in agony. When Julie pried open her daughter's eyes, she said they were 'blood red' and rushed her the hospital.

Doctors told Julie that the lenses had acted like suction cups around Emilie's corneas and tore cells away from them.

She was also diagnosed with periorbital cellulitis, an infection of the eyelid and the skin around the eyes.

It occurs when bacteria enters the eye and attacks the soft tissue surrounding it.

For four days, Emilie was unable to see. She kept asking her parents if she would be permanently blind or if she could go back to school.

Emilie's eyesight gradually returned, but doctors warned the family that if they didn't come in straight away, she would be blind. Photo / Facebook

Julie said that she didn't know how to respond to her daughter.

'For four days, we were scared. She could not see anything,' Julie told the newspaper.

'And we thought: "All this for Halloween contact lenses".'

Although Emile's eyesight gradually returned, doctors told her that she had to wear sunglasses for a month so her corneas could heal.

Five friends of the elementary schooler also wore contact lenses but did not suffer any medical problems.

Several optometrists in Canada are calling for coloured contact lessons to be banned unless needed for medical purposes.

'It is a medical product and it should be treated as such,' Eric Poulin, president of the Quebec Association of Optometrists told Le Journal de Montreal.

'They are sold everywhere, but they should not be.'

In Canada, corrective lenses have to be prescribed by doctors, but because coloured lenses are aesthetic, they can be sold over-the-counter.

Poulin believes selling contact lenses over-the-counter is a mistake because they need to be fitted over the eye.

If they are too tight, then the lenses can act like a suction and tear cells away from the cornea - which is what happened to Emilie.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration classifies decorative contact lenses as medical devices.

This means that federal law makes it illegal to sell decorative lenses over-the-counter without a prescription.

Optometrists say that knockoff lenses could have numerous problems such as lead in the colouring or bacteria in the saline solution.

Julie published a post on Facebook earlier this month, warning other parents about what happened to her daughter.

So far, the post has more than 540 reactions and has been shared more than 4,000 times.

'When you lose your eyes, they cannot be replaced,' Julie said. 'Yes, [contact lenses] give a good disguise, but at what price?'